Psychometric properties of an omnibus sleep problems questionnaire for school-aged children

ObjectiveThere is a paucity of sleep questionnaires that have been psychometrically validated for use in school-aged children. Due to the limitation regarding the psychometric properties and the great variety in question design, there remains a need for a robust omnibus questionnaire that assesses sleep problems in community populations. This study aimed to develop such a questionnaire for school-aged children by assessing the construct validity and reliability of a questionnaire based on a combination of children’s sleep domains from two frequently used and validated questionnaires (Habits Questionnaire and Sleep Disorders Scale for Children) and author devised questions.Patients/methodsParents of 1904 children aged 5–10 years (mean 7.7 ± 1.7 years) from 32 elementary schools in Adelaide, South Australia, completed the questionnaire.ResultsPrincipal axis factoring revealed six unique sub-scales – Sleep Routine, Bedtime Anxiety, Morning Tiredness, Night Arousals, Sleep Disordered Breathing, and Restless Sleep – containing a total of 26 items. Internal consistency for sub-scales were moderate to strong (range α = 0.6–0.8) and test–retest reliability was adequate (>0.4). T-score cut-offs were devised for age and sex.ConclusionThe new questionnaire provides a robust set of sleep problem sub-scales which can be used for assessment of sleep concerns in a community sample as well as provide for optimal analysis of associations with other measures of childhood daytime functioning such as neurocognition and behaviour.